


Good Tidings

by Lumelle



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Sherlock returns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:15:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumelle/pseuds/Lumelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John didn't pay much attention to the comments at first. Then, however, he noticed a pattern, one that gave him far too much hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Tidings

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my December project, in which I post one chapter and one one-shot for each day up until the 25th.

When the first comment appeared, he didn't think much about it.

Sure, it was made to an old entry, but then he had no new entries. Ever since Sherlock's death, he just hadn't felt right posting about his mundane life. Sure, he was working again, as a coroner as life had taken him, but it was still not the same as his old adventures.

"Can we hear more?"

He didn't even bother to respond to the comment. The name was unfamiliar, nothing meaningful, and he would have thought that the few years of inactivity would have served as an answer by themselves. All in all, he forgot about the comment almost immediately.

The next comment arrived a couple of days later, again drawing little attention from him, another short comment left to an old entry. The name of the commenter was the same, yet he could find nothing in either the comment or the stranger leaving them that would have forced him to finally come out of his rather lengthy hiatus in the blogging world. The only thing that caught his eye for a moment was the somewhat strange wording, before he realised the name of the commenter seemed foreign, and presumed it was simply a matter of English as a second language.

"Oh, did things take place like that?"

He left the comment unanswered again. There would hardly have been any point to doing so. If the reader wasn't going to believe his story as it stood, no amount of assurances from him would change that, after all.

"My friend said this is as true as any other thing."

When the third comment arrived, he ignored it outright. There would have been no point in answering it, or the one after it, each just as useless as a start for a conversation with a faceless stranger.

"Imagine if you would not have been there."

Around the fifth comment he started to find the whole affair the slightest bit strange. He had given no response, no reaction whatsoever to the comments, yet they kept arriving. Each was left to an old entry, referencing little if any of the contents, mostly in the form of innocent questions that still seemed off somehow. It might have been the sometimes stilted language or the mere fact that an unfamiliar person had apparently taken to leaving regular comments on his blog, yet for some reason, John's mind was flagging them as worthy of interest.

"Nobody could walk from that away."

For some time he suspected there might have been some form of a code to the comments. After all, stranger things had happened than someone approaching him through infrequent blog comments. However, the comments were too short to really have much in the way of contents, each only one sentence, and left too far apart for them to convey any kind of immediate message. He did try some of the most common deciphering methods on the comments, yet could not find any hidden messages.

After battling with his frustration for a couple of days, he was forced to the conclusion that the messages hid no stranger truth than that of their existence; someone whose English skills were not entirely perfect had simply taken to reading his blog, wishing to leave him comments. Sure, for someone simply reading through the entries it was quite the slow pace, but then, if English was only their second language, he supposed reading it would have been quite challenging as well. Nothing more mysterious than that.

"Gone like that? It's such the miracle."

A little voice in his head pointed out that Sherlock would have probably been able to analyse any mistakes and conclude the commenter's native language, educational background, and social standing at the very least. However, as John reminded the voice very firmly, Sherlock hadn't been here for well over three years, so whatever analysis he might have hypothetically been able to do was quite irrelevant here and now.

The comments still kept coming, a couple of days between each one, and John found himself keeping an eye out for them, for curiosity's sake more than anything. It was easier to occupy his mind with the strange comments without meaning than let himself contemplate the fact that it was almost Christmas, the fourth Christmas he was to spend without Sherlock yet it didn't feel any less painful.

"Hadn't thought it would go like it."

It was ridiculous of him, of course, given that he had only ever spent one Christmas with Sherlock and that had been tainted by the shadow of the first death of Irene Adler, but even years later he couldn't help but think back to that time with fondness. Sure, he had lost yet another girlfriend to the all-consuming presence that was Sherlock, had spent his Christmas night looking through Sherlock's possessions to make sure he didn't have any drugs hidden away for a sudden need, but still, there had been a warm presence in the flat and the sound of a violin in front of a frost-veiled window.

He supposed he'd do the same as he'd done the previous two years, because really, he had no other choice. He would have friends over, Lestrade and Molly would drop by just to say hi as they claimed, though it was clear they were checking up on him. Mrs. Hudson would be there, too, of course, and then they all would have a couple of drinks and something nice to eat, and perhaps at some point Mycroft would make a call that he insisted was entirely related to this classified matter or that little detail that John wouldn't mind looking over would he. And later that night, when everyone else had left, he would make his way to the graveyard as usual, would place a candle on the grave and perhaps curse and yell a bit if nobody else was near to be shocked, and finally he would come back home and try to sleep while the most scientific of ghosts played his haunted violin in the sitting room.

"Over in a flash with you two."

His interest was momentarily piqued as he received another comment, this time to an entry that his mysterious reader had already commented on before. However, even comparing the two he could find no secret meaning to the words, nothing beyond what they told him at face value.

Sherlock had always said there was no such thing as hidden meanings. To him, everything had been equally clear, some messages simply took more work to uncover. Sadly, not everyone could view the world in quite as simple terms.

"May it have been a wolf?"

Sometimes he wished he could have done what Sherlock had, could have dissected the world as though some strange experiment, seen the links and connections between things and thoughts and people like a little spider web of ideas. Other times he decided it was much simpler to live life as he did, just a simple doctor with a simple view of the world, with nothing complicating it. Well, nothing except the memory of Sherlock, and Mycroft when he was up to something, and the rare client who was desperate enough to turn to him in absence of Sherlock, and Lestrade who was starting to rely on his expertise in the fine art of cadavers and Molly who took great joy in mentoring him in this particular field of medicine.

He'd never really done simple well.

"Everything did well in the end."

Though there had been the one double comment, it wasn't until a couple of days before Christmas that he actually received two comments on the same day. One of them was innocuous enough, another double to an entry but otherwise utterly unremarkable.

"Shows how well you work together."

The other was not quite as innocent. In fact, as John saw it, he felt a cold shiver running down his spine. Not because the message itself was threatening or mysterious, anything else, but because of where it had been left.

"Happy holidays, John."

Someone had managed to leave a comment in his last entry. The one entry he had posted after Sherlock's death. The one that had been locked against new comments from that day, and still appeared to be so, aside from that one stray message staring at him from the screen.

Whoever had left the comment had broken into his account, unlocked comments, left their message, and then locked any new comments again.

Whatever the motivation behind this was, he was forced to conclude that this meant the messages were not quite as innocent as they appeared. This one message had no signature to it, but he was certain that it was linked to the strange comments that had been left on his account. Somehow, they were all linked, they carried some message, and whoever had left them wanted him to pay attention. That was the only possible reason why someone would have done something as attention-grabbing as stealing his account, even momentarily.

As the messages by themselves had proved impossible to decipher before, either the text itself or in relation to the entries they had been left on, he decided to view the messages with each other. Sure, the first time he had tried it he'd found nothing, but then now he had quite a few more samples. He copied all the messages into one document, in the order they had appeared, already thinking of how he could try to analyse them as a group.

This turned out to be quite unnecessary. Copied into one document, each so very short, the messages fell nicely in line, their first letters spelling out a message that chilled his blood as surely as it made him want to shout with joy.

"COMING HOME SH"

There were some thoughts, some dark, traitorous thoughts that told him he should have taken this as a warning. After all, Sherlock was dead. He had seen Sherlock's dead body with his own eyes, had seen him lying on the pavement, pale and motionless. Whoever had sent this message could not be Sherlock, and as such, it had to mean something else. For all he knew, it might have been a twisted message from Moriarty of all people; after all, wouldn't a visit from Sherlock be essentially death coming by?

Whatever he did, the thoughts warned him, he should take care not to be anywhere near 221B. Especially not on Christmas, as that seemed to be what the last message was hinting at. Preferably make sure Mrs. Hudson was out of the building as well, so as not to put her into danger. He could have alerted Mycroft as well, asked him to find whoever had broken into his account, this mysterious person with bad English who had taken to impersonating his darling younger brother.

John dismissed such thoughts as nothing but nonsense. He would have been quite disappointed if Mycroft hadn't been already aware; the smug bastard had probably caught on long before John himself had noticed that something was off. And as for not being in the flat, well, that was not going to happen. However slim the chances might have been, if there was even the faintest sliver of possibility that Sherlock might come back after all, the least he could do was be there waiting for him.

Besides, whispered a part of him that he didn't quite dare acknowledge, after three years of mourning and waiting and just barely managing to keep up a human face while dealing with others, perhaps a visit from death wouldn't have been such a burden after all.

He never mentioned the message to anyone, though he supposed his friends might have caught onto his more cheerful mood as they dropped by on Christmas Eve. They probably thought he was finally getting over Sherlock, he mused, a smile on his lips as he poured drinks for everyone. It certainly would have been about time, had he been inclined to do something like that.

Get over Sherlock. They might as well have blinded him and then asked him to forget that he had ever been fond of light.

There was a smile on his face as he bade goodbye to the others, a genuine smile only fitting of Christmas as Mrs. Hudson retired downstairs, leaving him alone with the fireplace and a warming drink. He took a seat in his chair, eyes locked on the flames, only ever moving when it seemed the fire needed some more fuel.

He could hear the clock ticking away, yet made sure not to even glance toward it. To do so would have been to admit that time was passing, that he wasn't here just to enjoy a peaceful evening but he was waiting, waiting with such patience for someone who had kept him in such anguish for over three years now.

He wasn't sure when he nodded off, when his eyes made to blink and instead closed themselves, when his head had fallen to the side. As he opened his eyes, though, the flames were playing just as merrily in the fireplace, as though he had just made them a gift of some more firewood.

"It just passed midnight a few minutes ago." The voice was smooth and familiar, dancing into his ears from the direction of the other chair, and right now he didn't dare tear his eyes off the flames. "Merry Christmas, John."

"Right." After another moment of hesitation he finally moved his eyes, from the flames to the long legs stretched toward the heat of the fire, up the legs to the lean body, then to the pale face framed with dark curls and the serious eyes locked on him. "I wasn't quite sure what to expect."

"Oh, I think you knew precisely what to expect." There was a smile on Sherlock's face, and all of a sudden John almost felt like crying, not because he was particularly sad and not even because he was angry, but simply because he had spent three and a half years wishing to see that smile again.

"Yeah, I guess I did." There were tears in his eyes, now, unable to hold them back as he was, but at the moment he didn't really care much about that. It didn't matter if he was crying, it didn't matter if it was past midnight on Christmas night and he was sure Mycroft would soon call to check in on him, nothing else mattered right now as long as Sherlock was really sitting there, looking at him with those familiar eyes.

"I suppose I should apologise for the less than traditional way of approaching you." Sherlock shrugged a bit. "Up until a day or two ago I was still knee deep in the vermin that scurried off Moriarty's ship when he blew out his brain. I wanted to let you know, but had to do it in a way that wouldn't alert those idiots."

"I spent quite a while puzzling over those comments." He shook his head. "Wasn't until the last one that I actually realised what they spelt out."

"Still better than you not having any warning at all, I hope."

"Oh, sure. Though not as good as an explanation would be."

"I'll give you all the explanations you want in the morning. Right now, though, I do believe you're in dire need of sleep."

"No, I'm not." He argued, of course he argued, even though he had hardly gotten a moment's rest ever since he had broken the code, certainly nothing longer than the moment he had nodded off sitting there by the fire. "I want to know, Sherlock. I need to know."

"In the morning, John." His tone was the annoying one, now, the one that told him Sherlock would accept no arguments, and frankly he would have done a great many things right now simply out of gratitude for being able to hear it again. "It would be quite the waste to have you fall asleep in the middle of my story, now wouldn't it?"

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it would." He closed his eyes again, just for a moment, and as he woke again he was in his own bed, though he certainly couldn't recall making his way there. Tired as he was, he decided not to question it, drawing the covers over himself and giving in to the darkness again.

The next time he opened his eyes it was morning, late enough for the room to be lit by daylight, and for a horrible, heartrending moment he was absolutely sure he had been dreaming the whole time, it had all been a dream after all or perhaps he had gone mad. Sherlock had never come, whispered that same traitorous part of his mind, it had been a cruel prank or perhaps he had just imagined it all, perhaps he was the one who had left those mysterious comments because he had been so desperate for any kind of sign that Sherlock wasn't gone after all. Lying in his bed as he did, alone and still somewhat confused from his sleep, it was easy to think that those words might well have been the truth.

Then the door was opened and Sherlock looked in, it really was Sherlock right there at the door of his bedroom, informing him there was breakfast and Mrs. Hudson had taken the news quite well and Mycroft had kept calling John's phone until Sherlock had turned it off so they might expect a visit from the man himself all too soon.

He wasn't sure what motivated him more to leave the bed, the promise of a breakfast waiting for him or the memory of having been promised explanations, but he certainly expected to receive both as he climbed out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown. Mycroft would definitely be annoyed to have been ignored, he thought. And then there would be the matter of informing others, and explaining everything to them, and if he'd thought it had been a terrible mess to take care of everything when Sherlock had been presumed dead this would likely turn out to be even worse. Quite frankly, though, he could not bring himself to worry at the moment.

Sherlock was back. Anything else was secondary.

It was indeed going to be a very merry Christmas.


End file.
